A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

Julie,

Does tea on a Wednesday count? What if it’s not international but historical? Both my son and my daughter came to me this afternoon and said, “Can we have a tea on a Wednesday just because?” Here is a picture of our “just because” tea. We are reading about early American history so we all dressed (even Mom) in period clothes and made muffins. We invited my daughter’s American Girl dolls (all dressed in Felicity’s clothes, of course) and read about colonial life in Felicity’s World. We had a surprise visit from Papa and after sitting him down for tea and muffins he looked at us and said, “Boy, you really do have fun during the day, don’t you?”

Yes, we do!

Brave Mom

Dear Julie,

We have been enjoying teatime since the end of July. And although the facial expressions might belie the fact, teatime is one of the highlights of our week.

Each child chose a poem on Monday and kept it a secret until Tuesday afternoon. They bookmarked lots of other poems in an effort to keep the Chosen One from being discovered. All the extra bookmarks did cause a bit of confusion, but eventually everyone located their Chosen One. We were then treated to readings of “Yankee Doodle,” “The Birthday Child,” “My Shadow,” and “Roger the Dog.” We munched Scottish Shortbread and drank glasses of ice cold milk before running outside to play.

Thank you for encouraging us to explore the wonders of poetry in such an enjoyable way!

A Brave Mom

Ours was not an international teatime, but we had one over the summer, the week before our youngest’s birthday. We had just arrived home from making him a bear at a retail store, and the children wanted to have a bear party, so we did! Nearly every bear in the house attended! It was a spontaneous, literal living of the book we read at our tea-time, which was Bears in Pairs, by Niki Yektai. This delightful picture book is a great one for young readers, and toddlers love to point to the appropriate bear as the poetry format is read to them. It could even inspire some young writers to create a similar style poem! See the reviews .

Of course, we read other bear poetry at our bear tea party, too. Hi Bears, Bye Bears, also by Niki Yektai, was one of the other features. We had peanut butter-chocolate chip coffeecake and hot chocolate at our party, and enjoyed the sunshine!

Brave Mom

Footnote: My daughter Johannah at age two loved this book so much she memorized and acted it out daily! We still have our dog eared copy. Highly recommended. –Julie